Fools (Licking Thicket 3) - Page 73
Well, fuck. I didn’t want to feel bad for Carter Rogers. Just the barest niggle of a pity party started in my gut, so I tried to drown that crap out with another beer.
It took several.
“So, um… my mom, you know?” My voice was kind of slurry when we got back around to the topic of Carter’s love life. We’d been interrupted by a gaggle of my old girlfriends from high school who’d been on a ladies’ lunch at a nearby table. Those girls used to flirt with me like crazy, but apparently Carter being fresh meat made me chopped liver.
Good riddance. I didn’t need them anyway. I was gay now, or whatever.
“Anyway,” I continued. “She says there are eighty-two guys in Licking-Nuthatch… or, wait. It’s Pecker Lurch. Thicket-Lurch PFLAG we can set you up with.” I punctuated my thought with a soft burp. The onion rings had done me so right. “Except Tucker, of course.”
“Mm.” He nodded and took a sip of something that looked suspiciously like sweet tea. “I can only handle one at a time. Maybe two. Then there was that time I did four, but Tucker did most of the work.”
Beer dribbled down my chin when my hand froze on its way to delivering the glass to my lips. “Huh?” The words continued to soak into my already beer-soaked brain. “Say what? You and Tucker—”
The built-in wooden booth table stopped me from standing up like I’d wanted. The damned thing nearly cut me in half. Carter just laughed. “God, you’re so easy to rile. Sit back down. I can’t believe you thought Tucker was the kind of guy to have an orgy.”
“I don’t know what gay guys do!” I barked. Several tables around us turned to stare. “Never mind! Mind your business,” I snapped at one table in particular where I recognized some faces from a neighboring farm. “Clyde, especially you. Don’t think I didn’t see you ducking out of Quick Snips the other day without tipping Railene. That shit’s not okay. She’s got dogs to feed.”
I sat back down and pointed a finger at Carter. “And stop messing with me. I’ve got problems.” I rubbed my chest. “Heart problems. It hurts right here.”
“That’s the bar food. Your heart’s fine.”
“What if he doesn’t want to live on a farm?” I couldn’t imagine giving up my herd for him, but I’d probably do it if that’s what he wanted. “Where would I put Bernadette?”
“Who’s Bernadette?” he asked, waving the server down for another refill. I looked at his long, elegant fingers and the expensive watch on his wrist.
“My cat,” I mumbled into the last dregs of beer.
“That’s right. I’d heard you liked pussy,” he said matter-of-factly.
I tried not to spit my beer all over the table. “Not true! You take that back! I like dick.”
Several gasps came from nearby tables, but I ignored them and stared into my empty glass. Small towns weren’t always great, despite Carter’s earlier claims. People gossiped like crazy since everyone knew everyone.
Carter lowered his voice. “That right there is a prime example. You don’t stop to think about the reality of being a gay or bi man in the world, and that’s one of the things that scares Tucker.”
I blinked up at him. “What do you mean?”
“It makes you a target. You have to constantly be aware of your surroundings, your safety. It might be easy for you since you pass as straight, but the minute you say shit about liking dick, you make yourself a potential target. It’s always something that Tucker is aware of, that men like me are aware of.”
“What do you mean men like you?”
He hesitated as if looking for the right words. “Pretty boys. The kind of man who plucks his eyebrows and wears floral ties and pink dress socks. We don’t exactly fit in here in small-town Tennessee, and men like that…” He flicked his eyes toward Clyde’s table where the guys were dressed in dusty boots and Carhartt work pants. “Sometimes hassle men like me and Tucker when given the opportunity.”
Carter’s soft voice broke through my tipsy haze enough to make me pause. “But… but Tucker’s never been hassled by anyone.” I spoke with a confidence I suddenly didn’t feel.
He sighed. “Dunn. Tucker and I walked out of a movie theater one night after a bunch of kids threw popcorn at us and called us names. I know for a fact he had slurs yelled at him in high school, and when I put my arm around a guy at a concert one night in college, two guys shoved us until we stopped touching each other.”
My stomach fell. “But that… that…” I clamped my back teeth together. Of course there was prejudice against gay people. I wasn’t stupid. I just hadn’t really stopped to think it through since we lived in the Thicket where everyone knew us. Brooks and Mal didn’t get hassled. Did they?
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